In the year behind us, numerous well-known regional figures from various fields – music, cinematography, sports, and others – passed away. Many of them will be remembered only for the good, and their loss is irreplaceable for the regional scene.
One of them is the legendary Halid Beslic, who died on October 7th, 2025, at the age of 72 after battling a serious illness. His death united the Balkans. “Ordinary” people considered him their own and said goodbye to him for days. Gatherings in his honor were organized in many Balkan cities, as well as abroad.
Jazz pianist and composer Matija Dedic died on June 8th, 2025, at the age of 53. The Croatian music scene was left speechless after his sudden death. Two months later, at the age of 89, his mother, the legendary jazz singer Gabi Novak, also passed away. Sasa Popovic, a musician and one of the founders of the record label Grand Production, died at the age of 70.
Former member of the cult band Ambasadori Ivica Vinkovic died at the age of 76. He was also a member of the band Jutro, the Music Production of BHRT, the Sarajevo Big Band, and the RTV Sarajevo Entertainment Orchestra.
BiH violinist Tatjana Romanic Piralic passed away after battling a serious illness. From 1998 to 2001, she was a member of the Sarajevo Philharmonic. She was a viola professor at the Sarajevo Secondary Music School, and in 2018, she was appointed director. Previously, she worked at the Music Academy in Istocno Sarajevo and at the Music Academy in Sarajevo.
Regional cinematography left without prominent film professionals
The acting scene also suffered major losses. The legendary Josip Pejakovic passed away – a son of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) – who will be remembered for his exceptional talent and love for his homeland, BiH. He was 78 years old. Earlier, in an interview, speaking about people who gather at the Eternal Flame and are among the greatest deniers of November 25th, he said:
“Those same people who lay flowers there and gather at the City Hall do not invite me, who am a recipient of the ZAVNOBiH Lifetime Achievement Award. With such views, they do not need me. They need a pretext to provoke the other side, which will say: ‘We do not recognize this.’ Who is right there? No one. Neither those who recognize it nor those who do not. That is the current politics ruling these areas. I would not hesitate to destroy any monument, not even Hitler’s. I would leave it, but I would write on the plaque who Hitler was, who Stalin was, who Tito was, who all of them were. They think that by demolishing a monument, they can do everything afterward. Our politics has mostly been reduced to where and when a monument will be torn down so that a monument to someone else can be erected. That is why we have absolutely no continuity.”
In 2025, we were also met with the sad news that Damir Ibrahimovic, film producer and founder of the production company Deblokada, passed away at the age of 61. The BiH film scene would be unimaginable without the films he worked on together with his wife, Jasmila Zbanic. Among them are Quo Vadis, Aida?, Grbavica, and others.
Actor Erol Kadic also passed away, remembered for roles in the films Underground, We Are Not Angels, the Serbian version of the series Nasa mala klinika, Bela ladja, and other cinematic works. He was a member of Atelje 212. He died at the age of 69.
BiH cultural sector and media scene
The cultural scene lost the esteemed BiH writer Irfan Horozovic. At the age of 78, he lost his battle for life after a serious illness. As stated by the Bosniak Writers’ Association, he published more than 40 titles, some of which saw several editions and performances.
His dramatic texts were performed on the radio (The Sixth Death of Benjamin Talha, Satisfaction, Kuburovic, Borrowed Sentence), in the theater (The Pink Teacher, The Room, Pehlivan Arif Tamburija, Šeremet, Rehearsal, Three Sabahudins), and on television (Seremet). Some of the texts were translated and performed in Sweden and Poland, while an adaptation of his book Talhe, titled Stories from the Sedrvan Garden, was presented in Rome.
Serbian writer Filip David passed away at the age of 85. He was one of the founders of the Belgrade Circle. He publicly criticized Greater-Serbian nationalism, for which he experienced harassment during the 1990s. Some of his best-known works include The House of Memory and Oblivion, Pilgrims of Heaven and Earth, A Dream of Love and Death, and the short story collection Notes on the Real and the Unreal.
The Academy of Fine Arts Sarajevo announced the sad news that painter Sead Music passed away. He was 82 years old. He was the author of many solo exhibitions and participated in numerous domestic and international collective exhibitions. As a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Sarajevo, he educated many generations of students and mentored a large number of undergraduate and master’s theses.
In the past year, Slobodan Svrzo, editor and host of the cult program Good Vibrations, also passed away. He was also known for the show The Black Sheep. He founded the first private television station, Good Vibrations, in Sarajevo in 1990. It was located in Marindvor. The newsroom was heavily damaged in 1992, but they managed to record and publish the first days of the siege – April 5th and 6th. The TV station was shut down shortly thereafter. Svrzo left behind a rich career in journalism. Among other roles, he was a program editor at TVSA and the first program director of FACE TV. He also worked for Voice of America.
BiH journalist Slobodan Vaskovic passed away at the age of 63. Vaskovic was known for investigative work and unwavering criticism of authorities in BiH, particularly in Republika Srpska (RS).
Editor of the N1 BiH television web portal Jasmin Musanovic died suddenly at the age of 38. After graduating from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo, he spent almost his entire journalistic career, 11 years, working in this media outlet, Klix.ba writes.
